Hydrocarbons are commonly removed from natural gas to prevent the condensation of liquids in pipeline transmission systems. Pipelines commonly impose a dew point specification to prevent the condensation of the liquids, with hydrocarbon recovery units (HRUs) being utilized to remove heavy hydrocarbons in particular.
Silica gel sorbents have an affinity for heavy hydrocarbons, such as C6+ components, and may be used in HRUs. In such systems, a fluid volume (e.g., natural gas) containing heavy hydrocarbons is passed through a bed of silica gel to trap heavy hydrocarbons. Regeneration may be performed by passing a pressurized and/or heated stream of natural gas feed or product gas through the sorbent bed. After cooling, the heavy hydrocarbons contained in the effluent from the regeneration process can be condensed as a liquid product and removed. In order to improve the adsorptive efficiency of such systems, there is a need to explore the use of other sorbent materials that exhibit higher affinities for heavy hydrocarbons.